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Top 10 inventions from the Syracuse area: A look back

shot clock Armory Square

The 24-second shot clock in Armory Square, pictured in 2006 at the corner of Walton and Franklin streets, pays tribute to inventor Danny Biasone who first tested the basketball game-changer in Syracuse.
(Michelle Gabel | mgabel@syracuse.com)

In a typical day, you might drive home from the dentist's office, grab a few slices of bread to make a sandwich, kick off your shoes and sit down to watch a basketball game. But in the process, did you realize you just used half a dozen inventions from Syracuse?

The Salt City might be famous for its snowy winters, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, and the Orange basketball team, but there's plenty more deserving recognition from Central New York. Innovations from or by people from the Syracuse area include the dental chair, serrated knife, traffic lights, pneumatic tire, 24-second shot clock and that metal thing you use to measure your shoe size (the Brannock device).

Here's a list of 10 inventions with roots in the Syracuse area:

In 1840, Milton Waldo Hanchett of Syracuse invented what became the modern dental chair.Ellen M. Blalock | eblalock@syracuse.com

Dentist's chair
Nobody likes going to the dentist, but can you imagine getting a root canal while trying to sit still on a stool? In 1840, Milton Waldo Hanchett of Syracuse patented the "reclining chair" that served as a prototype for the modern dental chair.

Time clock
"Married... With Children" fans will be surprised to learn of a successful Bundy: The first time clock, also known as a punch clock or time recorder, was invented in 1888 by Willard Bundy in Auburn, N.Y. The jeweler created the mechanical timepiece to help keep track of the hours employees worked, and the idea proved so good that Willard's brother Harlow Bundy started the Bundy Manufacturing Company to mass-produce time clocks for other companies.

Traffic lights
The upside down traffic light on Tipperary Hill might get worldwide recognition every St. Patrick's Day, but the country's first traffic light was manufactured in Syracuse. According to the Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Crouse Hinds Company, started by Huntington Beard Crouse and Jesse Lorenzo Hinds in 1894, built the traffic light that was installed in Texas in 1921. The Salt City got its first traffic light three years later on the corner of State and James streets.

Pneumatic tire
Syracuse inventor Alexander Brown had 300 patents in his lifetime, but his most well-known may be the pneumatic tire. In 1892, he George F. Stillman were granted the patent for "new and useful Improvements in Tires" that consisted of a design for inflatable or pneumatic tires that could be "easily detached or mounted to the rim of the wheel" on cars and other vehicles.

View full sizeThe late Danny Biasone, an innovator of the NBA's 24-second shot clock, is shown in this March 8, 1992 photograph at a gym at Syracuse University.Michael Okoniewski | The Associated Press

24-Second Shot Clock
When James Naismith started the sport of basketball in 1891 with two peach baskets and a soccer ball, he couldn't have possibly imagined Michael Jordan or LeBron James making a fancy dunk on a fast break. Games were long plagued by a slow pace and low scores (the Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18 on Nov. 22, 1950) until late Syracuse Nationals owner Danny Biasone invented the shot clock in 1954. Scoring immediately increased by 14 points a game the following season, prompting the league's first president Maurice Podoloff to call the introduction of the 24-second rule "the most important event in the NBA." A constantly-running shot clock in Armory Square still pays tribute to Biasone and his invention today.

Serrated knife
Syracuse resident Joseph E. Burns was credited with inventing the serrated knife in 1919. His design featured small grooves or serrations perpendicular to the blade to make cutting bread easier in both directions. And don't forget the sequel: Burns also patented a "sharpening device for edged implements" in 1940.

Synthetic Penicillin
Speaking of bread, synthetic penicillin was first manufactured at Syracuse's Bristol Laboratories in 1959. Frank Buckwalter, H. Leo Dickison and Amel Menotti first publicized research on a synthetic version of the antibiotic in 1948 at the local division of Bristol Meyers, and eventually produced the safer drug in 1959.

View full sizeIn 1926, Syracuse inventor Charles Brannock patented the Brannock device, still used today as the standard measurement for shoe sizes.Li-Hua Lan | The Post-Standard

Brannock device
What's your shoe size? You can thank Syracuse inventor Charles Brannock for the answer to that. His Brannock device is not a household name, but you've surely seen and used the measuring instrument in shoe stores several times in your life. Brannock's father Otis co-owned the Park-Brannock Shoe Co. in downtown Syracuse in the early 1900s while Charles used his time as a Syracuse University student to test the best way to measure a foot in length and width. According to the Brannock Device Co. website, he built a prototype using an Erector set, patented the device in 1926 and then created a company to build what is still used today as the footwear industry standard.

Lacrosse
While the first stickball games may be hard to trace, the Iroquois consider themselves the originators of modern-day lacrosse. Also known as the Haudenosaunee and the "Six Nations," the Native American people in upstate New York and parts of Canada used a netted racquet to pick up, carry, throw or shoot a ball. The Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes called it "The Creator's Game." While other varieties of lacrosse were played elsewhere, the game always the common rule that players cannot touch the ball with their hand. A brief nod to the Haudenosaunee history of the sport is shown in the 2012 movie "Crooked Arrows," starring Brandon Routh and many real-life Iroquois lacrosse players.

Vacuum brake for railroads
Though disputed in his lifetime, Frederick W. Eames of Watertown received his first patent for a vacuum brake for railroad cars in 1874. He started what eventually became the New York Air Brake company, and by 1879 at least 29 U.S. railroads were using Eames' brake, according to "The American Railroad Passenger Car" by John H. Waite. The New York Times noted Eames had a reputation for being eccentric and quick-tempered, though, and he was shot and killed by a worker in his Beebee Island office on April 20, 1883.

Other notable CNY-based innovations: the first pair of Loafers were created in Syracuse by the A.E. Nettleton Company in 1937; James H. Little of Skaneateles is among those who patented a washing machine in the 1830s; the Merchants National Bank and Trust Company built the first 'drive-in bank' in Syracuse in 1949, paving the way for drive-up bank teller windows and drive-thru ATMs; Theodore Case of Auburn helped spark the talking pictures craze when he invented Movietone for recording sound on film in 1922; and in 1876 an Onondaga Pottery (later Syracuse China) employee Richard Glenon received a patent for improving machines that form potteryware.